FROM THE LEFT
SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1
From the Left The newsletter of the Section on Marxist Sociology, American Sociological Association
Note from the Editors
Dear Section Members,
We are happy to bring back the regular
publication of our section's newsletter, From the
Left (after only a brief hiatus). From the Left is
the central written communication for the
Section on Marxist Sociology in the ASA. For
many years, it has been, and continues to be, a
useful site for members to exchange theoretical
insights and research, learn the history of
IN THIS ISSUE: Marxist sociology and otherwise critically ex-
amine historical developments.
The newsletter is an important exchange
PAGE 2 for practical information related to work in the
CRISIS AND discipline, conferences, survival in an oft-hostile
REVITALIZATION IN environment, teaching materials and strategies,
MARXIST THEORY and other available resources. The newsletter
John Bellamy Foster also provides a cultural forum--with visual art,
poetry and drama--demonstrating the many
talents and diverse interests of section mem-
PAGE 7
bers.
RESOURCES: CONFERENCES
Most importantly, the newsletter, at its
AND CALLS FOR PAPERS
best, is a tool for building and maintaining a
community of scholars and friends that col-
PAGE 8-9 laborate to further the shared interests of
BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS Marxist scholars and the development of
Marxist social science. We believe this is crucial
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TEN DAYS IN PARIS ology and Marxist sociology in general, and for
A forthcoming play by Dianne Dentice the survival and vitality of the left.
In the spirit of collaboration, community
and solidarity, the editors would like to invite
all section members, and those interested in
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joining the Section on Marxist Sociology, to
ASA CONFERENCE
SCHEDULE contribute your insights and interests.
There are several ways you can partici-
Includes a list of all sessions and social
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functions hosted by the Marxist
to and encourage:
Section as well as other sessions that 1) Please consider submitting any of the
may be of interest. following materials for the fall newsletter:
•Report backs from the ASA conference
•Articles (roughly 1,500 words)
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IN THE NEWS AND HISTORY •New publication announcements (such
A recent story from Businessweek on as: book announcements of recently pub-
lished or forthcoming works, articles, or
the “Pet Economy”. other papers)
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formation
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In Solidarity,
Hannah Holleman and R. Jonna, Univer-
sity of Oregon. Section on Marxist Sociology
 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1

Crisis and Revitalization in Marxist Theory SECTION OFFICERS

By: John Bellamy Foster 2006-2007
Szymanski’s Cycles Chair: John Bellamy Foster,
University of Oregon
In the 1960s and early 1970s Marxian theory (including Marxian-
Chair-Elect: William DiFazio
influenced critical theory) was arguably the most dynamic force within social
Past Chair: Jeffrey A. Halley,
theory as a whole. However, by the late 1970s its impact had begun to wane as
University of Texas-San Antonio
capitalist societies turned further to the right with the rise of neoliberalism and
Council: Warren S. Goldstein,
as the academy shifted to postmodernist deconstruction. This was widely per-
University of Central Florida,
ceived as constituting a crisis of Marxian theory, one that could be traced to Karen Bettez Halnon, Pennsylva-
the failure of the 1968 revolt in the West—later to be amplified by the col- nia State University, Jennifer
lapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989 and fall of the Soviet Union itself in 1991. Yankton Lehmann, University of
In an early response to these developments entitled “Crisis and Vitali- Nebraska, Paul B. Paolucci, East-
zation in Marxist Theory,” Al Szymanski (1985) argued that Marxism was not ern Kentuky University, David
to be seen “as a static system, a linear trend, or a back and forward movement Norman Smith, University of
Kansas, Talmadge Wright, Loyola
between the same two poles” (p. 315).1 Rather Marxist theory developed
University Chicago
through an “oscillation between orthodoxy…and open and eclectic formula-
Newsletter Editors:
tions,” exhibiting a cyclical pattern, but with long-run development. Marxian
Hannah Holleman & R. Jonna,
theory, he claimed, could be seen “as repeating a basic cycle of four phases: University of Oregon
(1) a period of energization or impetus; (2) a period of formation/reassertion
of revolutionary materialist theory; (3) a period of the watering down of revo-
FROM THE LEFT SEEKS
lutionary formulation; and (4) a period of predominance of explicit ‘revision- SUBMISSIONS FOR ITS
ism.’” Szymanski designated “five (or five and-a-half)” cyclical periods up to FALL ISSUE.
that point, each designated by its beginning revolutionary upsurge: “1843- Please send proposals or texts
by email to Hannah Holleman at
1849; 1864-1871 (the half period); 1884-1906; 1917-1921; 1935-1949 and
hannahsfarm@gmail.com
1967-1970” (pp. 315-16).2
Deadline: September 30, 2007
Since this was a materialist analysis, the development of ideas was not
seen as independent of material conditions. Nor were they, however, to be
seen as mere “reflections” of an “economic base.” Rather, as Marx explained,
ideas themselves--once they came into being--became a material force. Al-
though the course of Marxist theory reflected changes on the ground, the rela-
tively autonomous cyclical pattern of theory itself (and its continuity and de-
velopment over the course of these cycles) was a critical issue.
As Szymanski elaborated on his four phases, Phase I exhibited a
“‘storm the heavens’ mentality…Everything is possible” (p. 317). Phase II
was the period in which “seminal theoretical works” were most likely to ap-
pear, “often written as pamphlets, polemics or manifestos in Phase I” and then
developed further, usually by “young activist leaders” of Phase I. “In some
cases,” he wrote,

1 Al Szymanski was one of the founders and early formative thinkers of the Section on Marx-
ist Sociology of the American Sociological Association. His article on “The Crisis and Vitali-
zation in Marxist Theory” was published posthumously following his death in March 1985.
2 He added in a footnote: “The timing of these periods is, not surprisingly, somewhat different
in different parts of the world capitalist system, as all movements do not peak at precisely the
same time” (p. 316).
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 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1
“publication occurs with a considerable delay; e.g., the
1960s works of Marcuse, and of Baran and Sweezy,
had been germinating for 25 years” (p. 318). Phase III
is the period in which “the disjunction between theory
(revolutionary) and practice (reformist) which began
to appear toward the end of Phase II becomes domi-
nant.” Here “verbal discourse is still one of orthodox
Marxism, but the substance of that discourse…under-
goes a fundamental transformation in the direction of
idealism, eclecticism, voluntarism, subjectivism, de-
mocracy, reformism, and evolutionary politics” (p.
318). Finally, Phase IV is “the period of true crisis in
Marxist theory.” Here “the unity of theory and practice
is restored—now around an explicitly reformist prac-
tice and revisionist theory” (p. 319).
“The minority who persist [in Phase IV] in ad-
hering to orthodox categories, in spite of the withering
of the mass movements that had once made them vital,
adopt a siege mentality….The cost of maintaining a
revolutionary materialist analysis is the crystallization
of the disjunction between critical theory and
practice….Revolutionary materialism, now cased in a
hard shell, has rigidified. But irrelevance nevertheless
keeps the seeds of what once was a vital, creative and
powerful force alive” (p. 319).
The Fifth Cycle
Szymankski’s main interest, naturally, was the
“fifth cycle,” which had its “beginning revolutionary
upsurge” in 1967-1970. The distinctive feature of this
period, he claimed, was the emphasis on the “Third
World,” reflecting the fact that it drew its main inspira-
tion from “developments in China, the Cuban Revolu-
tion, the Vietnam [W]ar, and the civil rights struggles
in the U.S.” (p. 325). Nevertheless, “by the late 1970s
in France and soon thereafter in the rest of the West, a
wide variety of individualistic, humanistic, empiricist
and reformist ideologies became dominant….The dis-
course of revolutionary Marxism, after a moment of
leading massive demonstrations around 1968, became
increasingly isolated from mass struggles (which now
were led by confirmed social democrats). Once again
the separation of revolutionary Marxist theory and
mass movements in the West became complete” (p.
330).
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For Szymansksi it was clear “that it is from the
needs and experience of revolutionary movements, not
the heads of intellectuals, that theoretical advance
springs….The energy and imagination of working
people spill over to the intelligentsia.” For this reason,
he argued, “it is no accident that many of those in the
West who are today adherents of orthodox Marxism
have ties to the vital mass movements of the less de-
veloped countries.” The actual revitalization of Marx-
ist theory in the advanced capitalist countries them-
selves, however, was likely to occur only as a result of
“protracted economic depression or warfare” (p. 331).
The Protracted Crisis
Given that there is no clear mechanism involved in
Szymanski’s cycles in revolutionary activity and
Marxist theory, which appear to depend to a large ex-
tent on the internal contradictions of the system, it
would be a mistake to make too much of this periodi-
zation, except historically, i.e. after the fact. Neverthe-
less, it is interesting that his framework points to gen-
erational cycles of roughly 20-30 years (perhaps influ-
enced by long waves of capitalist development and the
ensuing economic ups and downs and related periods
of militarization/demilitarization). Viewed in this way
one might have expected a new radical/revolutionary
movement and an upsurge in Marxist theory (a new
Phase I) to have begun sometime around the late
1980s, or at least by the 1990s. One is tempted there-
fore to inquire whether there was a missing or delayed
sixth cycle in the development of revolutionary prac-
tice and Marxist theory.
The question may of course seem a bit me-
chanical. There are too many historical contingencies,
too many changing relations, to expect social cycles to
fall into a very regular periodization. Nevertheless, the
issue of a missing or delayed sixth cycle in the devel-
opment of Marxian theory does raise some intriguing
questions about the historical nature of our time and
the actual revitalization of Marxism that we are now
witnessing.
The year 1989—about the time that Szyman-
ski's analysis suggested that a renewal of revolutionary
activity could take place as a result of such factors as
economic stagnation and war—is in fact remembered
 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1
as a year of revolution emanating from stagnation and
war. But the revolt was against the entrenched ruling
classes of the Soviet bloc countries, rather than against
capitalism as such, and led to a restoration of capital-
ism in the Soviet Union itself.
Most Western Marxists (Szymanski himself
was an exception) had long distanced themselves from
developments in the Soviet Union—where the Stalin-
ism of the 1930s had created the conditions for the rise
of a new ruling class. Yet, the fall of the Soviet bloc
was widely interpreted on the left (as well as the right)
as a historical rejection of Marxism. Accompanied as
this was by the rise of market fetishism and the fall of
European-style social democracy, the result was to re-
inforce for a considerable period of time the he-
gemonic view that, in Margaret Thatcher’s words,
“there is no alternative.”
At the same time capitalism was going through
a major transition from monopoly capital to global
monopoly-finance capital. The stagnation of the ac-
cumulation function in the advanced capitalist states
and a slowing of the trend-rate of growth were accom-
panied by a financial explosion and the triumph of fi-
nancial capital (Foster 2006, 2007). As the world en-
tered the 1990s, therefore, the left was almost every-
where in disarray.
Nevertheless, to see 1989 simply as a year of
defeat for the left would be a major error. The turn to
finance in the advanced capitalist economy generated
its own historically specific ideology of neoliberalism.
The global structural crisis of capital underlying these
developments reignited class and imperial wars
throughout the world, with the assault falling most
heavily on those areas of the periphery most firmly
under the control of the advanced capitalist states:
Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia. Meanwhile,
the growth of global environmental crisis in the late
1980s increasingly undermined faith in the system. As
a result, the very moment that socialism was being
pronounced defeated, the roots of the revitalization of
Marxist theory and practice were being laid.
As Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National
Assembly of Cuba and its permanent representative to
the United Nations, has stated, “So much was said
about the fall of the Berlin Wall that few realized that
at the same time the Caracazo was taking place. When
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the impoverished masses took to the streets of the
Venezuelan capital (February 27, 1989) to protest
against IMF draconian measures and were brutally
massacred, the western media kept a despicable si-
lence. However, it was the beginning of a process that
no one can deny anymore: the bankruptcy of the neo-
liberal economic model” and the path to a socialism
for the 21st century (Alarcon 2007: 9).
The Revitalization of Marxist Theory
The crucial conceptual blockage that prevented
this new historical moment from being seen in its
proper perspective at the time can of course be traced
to the symbolic “death of Marxism” identified with the
collapse of the Soviet bloc. A theoretical critique that
dealt with the global transformations taking place at
the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the
twenty-first centuries on a level rivaling the greatest
contributions of Marxist theory in the past was there-
fore needed.
Beginning in the early 1970s István Mészáros,
Lukács’s most brilliant student, and author of the mag-
isterial Marx’s Theory of Alienation (1971), redirected
his research from his major philosophical treatises to
the question of the “global structural crisis of capital.”
The result of two decades of intensive work was his
monumental Beyond Capital (1995). Among his most
important innovations was to return to Marx’s original
emphasis on the critique of capital generally, as op-
posed to capitalism specifically. This allowed
Mészáros to develop not only a systematic critique of
the most advanced stage of monopoly capital, but also
to dissect the demise of the Soviet revolution, as a re-
sult of the failure to transcend the root capital relation.
Mészáros emphasized the need for a more radical-
democratic socialist revolution that would put the peo-
ple in charge, merging Rousseau and Marx. Already in
1995 Mészáros had singled out Hugo Chávez as the
most brilliant analyst of the Latin American situation,
and as its leading potential revolutionary political fig-
ure (pp. 710-12; Mészáros 2007). Chávez himself was
to pore over Beyond Capital incorporating it into his
conception of revolution, thereby laying the basis for a
new revolutionary state that would turn power over to
the masses in every institutional way possible, while
 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1

promoting the general will through the executive
power.
The five years from 1998 to 2003 could be
seen as a turning point, possibly constituting a new
Phase I at the world level. In 1998 Hugo Chávez was
elected president in Venezuela and immediately set out
through popular mobilization to create a new revolu-
tionary constitution in Venezuela, a process completed
in December 1999, establishing the Bolivarian Repub-
lic of Venezuela. Meanwhile, street protests in Seattle
in November 1999 helped ignite the anti-capitalist
globalization movement, leading to major protests in
Europe, the United States and elsewhere in the first
two years of the new millennium. The terrorist attacks
of September 2001 became a pretext for a new global
assault by the U.S. empire, in the form of wars in Af-
ghanistan and Iraq and an extension of the U.S.
worldwide military base system, aimed at ending the
decline of U.S. hegemony and creating a new century
of U.S. global domination. This sparked the greatest
wave of world anti-war protests in history. The failure
of the U.S.-backed coup against Hugo Chávez in 2002
was followed by Chávez’s increasingly open advocacy
of a new “socialism for the 21st century,” and his pro-
motion of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas,
together with Cuba and Bolivia. The election of Evo
Morales of the Movement Toward Socialism as presi-
dent of Bolivia in 2005 (Bolivia’s first indigenous
president), the election of Rafael Correa, also an advo-
cate of a “socialism for the 21st century,” as president
of Ecuador in 2006, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega’s
return to power in the 2006 election in Nicaragua, the
electoral and popular revolts in Mexico in 2006-2007,
the successful transition in Cuba, coming out of its
“Special Period” and emerging as a world leader in
ecological restoration, and the continuing resistance of
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia
(FARC), constitute elements in a widespread Latin
American revolt.3
As the global structural crisis of capital, now
extending to the planet itself, has unfolded, issues of
imperialism, class inequality, class struggle, and so-
cialism have come back to the fore, while Marxist eco-
logical analysis is transforming the way we think
about material relations. The titles of the last five spe-
cial summer issues of Monthly Review, point to some
of the major world developments: Imperialism Now
(2003), China and Socialism (2004), Socialism in the
21st Century (2005), Aspects of Class in the United
States (2006), and Revolt in Latin America (2007).
Theorization about socialism, in response to past fail-
ures at socialist construction and inspired by the new
struggles for socialism in Venezuela and elsewhere,
are now developing at a fast pace, particularly among
theorists who have focused on third world conditions.
In addition, to Mészáros’s Beyond Capital, Michael
Lebowitz (author of his own important work Beyond
Capital [2003]) has authored Build it Now: Socialism
for the 21st Century (2006), also praised by Chávez.
Mészáros’s soon to be released The Challenge and
Burden of Historical Time (2008, forthcoming) evokes
this new revolutionary process, helping to provide a
theoretical basis for the Bolivarian revolution (empha-
sizing the continuity between Rousseau, Bolivar, Marx
and Chávez).4 Symbolic of this new period of energi-
zation in Marxist theory is a reconsideration of the
classics. Thus a new annotated edition of The Commu-
nist Manifesto, edited by Phil Gasper (Marx and
Engels 2005), corrects past mistranslations into Eng-
lish and connects the Manifesto to today’s revolution-
ary and class movements, and to gender, race, and en-
vironmental struggles.
Perhaps the most ambitious recent develop-
ment in Marxist theory, aside from reformulations of
state-society relations in the transition to socialism,
has been the ecological turn, which is broadening the
notion of materialism (in line with Marx’s own analy-
sis), from a primarily economic to a wider ecological
form. This theoretical turn had its inception the late
1980s with the growing awareness of planetary eco-
logical crisis associated with the destruction of the
ozone layer, global warming, and the accelerated ex-

3Latin America was not the only region to see revolutionary activity in this era, as witnessed by the astounding victories of the new
Maoist revolutionary movement in Nepal in the opening years of the twenty-first century.
4Thepublication of The Crisis and Burden of Historical Time will be followed by the publication of two major philosophical works by
Mészáros, many years in the gestation: The Social Determination of Method and The Dialectic of Structure and History.
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tinction of species. A key development was the crea-
tion in the late 1980s and 1990s of Capitalism, Nature,
Socialism, with James O’Connor as founding editor.
The debates that ensued led to a host of theoretical
works, including Carolyn Merchant’s Radical Ecology
(1992), O’Connor’s Is Capitalism Sustainable?
(1994), Paul Burkett’s Marx and Nature (1999) and
Marxism and Ecological Economics (2006), my own
Marx’s Ecology (2000), Joel Kovel’s The End of Na-
ture, and Peter Dickens’s Society and Nature (2004).
In the last decade in sociology major Marxist or
Marxist-inspired ecological analyses have appeared in
the American Journal of Sociology, the American So-
ciological Review, Theory & Society, Sociological
Quarterly, Organization & Environment, Monthly Re-
view, the Socialist Register, and elsewhere (see, for
example, Foster 1999; York, Rosa, and Dietz, 2003;
Foster and Clark 2004; Clark and York 2005a; Clark
and York 2005b; Clausen and Clark 2005; Burkett and
Foster 2006; Clausen 2007). This work, though having
its epicenter in the United States, has been most influ-
ential in the periphery of the capitalist world economy,
where radical ecological struggles are occurring in
Latin America, Asia and Africa. In its Special Period
Cuba became a world leader in organic agriculture.
And Fidel Castro, in 2007, emerged as a major com-
mentator on world ecological problems.5
We have therefore entered what might be con-
sidered, in Szymanski’s terms, a new vital phase of
Marxist theory, which like all previous such phases
has its distinctive traits: its focus is on the periphery,
its search for a revolutionary-democratic collectivism,
and its ecological-materialist analysis. Yet, there was
clearly a long down phase in the fifth cycle of Marxian
theory, resulting from the effects that the downfall of
the Soviet bloc (occurring simultaneously with a new
global capitalist assault in the form of neoliberalism)
had on left consciousness. The revitalization of Marx-
ist theory began not in the late 1980s but in the late
1990s.6
Further, the revitalization has lagged even
more in the advanced capitalist West (with some ex-
ceptions, such as, theorists linked to the third world,
and ecological analysis). Despite the growing evidence
of the global structural crisis of capital, the disappear-
ance of a supposed social democratic alternative has
left would-be radicals with no mid-point between lib-
eralism and Marxism, requiring a much greater leap
than in the past. The Thatcherite “there is no alterna-
tive” still holds considerable sway. In this situation,
erstwhile, self-styled leftists caught up in an atmos-
phere of defeat still cast around for postmodernist and
post-Marxist straws. Hence, the remarkable phenome-
non that in 2000, even as revolutionary struggle and
imperialist war were beginning to heat up once again,
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000) got enor-
mous favorable publicity (partly as a result of the
warm reception of the media monopoly) for their post-
Marxist claim that imperialism had ended with the
Vietnam War, and that a new constitutional order of
globalized “Empire” based on Jeffersonian democracy
was opening up for the world multitude. A kind of
classical revisionism thus thrust forward in the West
effacing all other tendencies at the very moment that
Marxist theory was revitalizing in the world as a
whole.7
History has no end. Claims that socialism and
Marxist theory were dead and the Empire triumphant
misunderstood the nature of the historical process, and
now have been proven wrong. Just as human actors
make history, they can remake it, but only under defi-
nite conditions inherited from the past. Such remaking
is again possible in our time.

5 The
full set of Fidel Ruiz Castro’s 2007 columns can be found under “Commentary” on the Monthly Review website,
www.monthlyreview.org.
6 Seminal works are emerging earlier on in the new cycle than Szymanski’s framework would suggest, so that the 1990s were a period
of great theoretical advance as represented by Mészáros’s work and developments in Marxist ecology. This reflects the fact that
Marxian theorists, took on the issue of the global structural crisis of capital in these intervening years, while the growth in the 1990s of
a global environmental movement critical of capitalism inspired new Marxist theory in that area.
7For a sense of how retrograde Hardt and Negri’s thesis was it is only necessary to compare it to Mészáros’s (2001) analysis, com-
posed at the same time, which much more accurately captured the global contradictions of our time.
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 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1

Foster, John Bellamy. 2006. “Monopoly-Finance Capital.”

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Mészáros, István. 2008 (forthcoming). The Challenge and Burden
of Historical Time. New York: Monthly Review Press.
O’Connor, James. 1994. Is Capitalism Sustainable. New York:
Guilford Press.
Szymanksi, Al. 1985. “Crisis and Vitalization in Marxist Theory.”
Science & Society 49 (3): 315-31, Fall.
York, Richard, Eugene A. Rosa and Tom Dietz. 2003. “Footprints
on the Earth”. American Sociological Review 68 (2): 279-300.

Conferences and Calls for Papers

Two important web resources that maintain conference schedules and their attendant submission deadlines are
the International Sociological Association and the American Sociological Association's Regional Conference
Schedule.

You can find the schedule of international conferences maintained by the ISA at:
http://www.isa-sociology.org/cforp0.htm

You can find the schedule of regional conferences maintained by the ASA at:
http://asanet.org/cs/root/leftnav/meetings/future_meetings/regional_sociological_societies

**If there are other calendars you are aware of that we should publish in From the Left so that members have
access, please e-mail information to the newsletter editor.

PAGE 7 OF 15 HTTP://WWW2.ASANET.ORG/SECTIONMARXIST/
 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1

Books New and recent books of interest

Romania's Tortured Road Toward Modernity.

Thomas J. Keil. (2006) Boulder, CO; East European Monograph Series,Columbia University Press, New York.

From the Historical Materialism Book Series:

Exploring Marx's Capital: Philosophical, Economic and Political Dimensions.
By Jacques Bidet (author), Alex Callinicos (foreword) and David Fernbach (translator) (Hardcover) 2007
Marxism and Ecological Economics: Toward a Red and Green Political Economy.
By Paul Burkett (Hardcover) 2006
Western Marxism and the Soviet Union: A Survey of Critical Theories and Debates Since 1917.
By Marcel Van Der Linden (Hardcover) 2007
Althusser: The Detour of Theory.
By Gregory Elliott (Hardcover) 2006

Karl Marx: A Biography, 4th Ed. (Paperback) 2006

By David McLellan

Marx's Theory of Alienation

By István Mészáros (Hardcover) 2006

Prison Notebooks, Volume 3

By Antonio Gramsci, Translator: Joseph A. Buttigieg (Hard-
cover) 2007

Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements, Vol. 3

By James Defronzo (Paperback) 2007

More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States

Monthly Review Press (Summer 2007). Edited by Michael D.
Yates with contributions by John Bellamy Foster, Vincent
Navarro, William K. Tabb, Michael Perelman, Richard D. Vo-
gel, David Roediger, Kristen Lavelle and Joe Feagin, Sabiyha
Prince, Martha Gimenez, Stephanie Luce and Mark Brenner,
Peter McLaren and Ramin Farahmandpur, Michael D. Yates,
Angela Jancius, and Michael Zweig.

Social Class and Stratification: Classic Statements and

Theoretical Debates
By Rhonda Levine (Paperback) 2nd. Ed. 2006

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 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1
Forthcoming...“Ten Days in Paris”
By: Dianne Dentice
It is interesting to note that the ten days that
Marx and Engels spent together in late August 1844
was never chronicled in letters between the two men.
Even in Engels’ later writings he refers to the meeting
in passing. Marx reviewed some of their work from
that time period but never mentions any details about
what happened during the ten days they spent together.
The meeting has been mentioned by notable scholars
such as David McClellan, Isaiah Berlin, Werner Blu-
menberg, and Hal Draper, however. Given the impor-
tance of this interlude to the future development of
Marxism and the 40 year friendship and collaboration
between the two men it deserves more than mere men-
tion in the literature.
This initial collaboration also represents the
early ideas of Marx. Engels was working on The
Condition of the Working Class in England during this
time and was already a committed communist. Both
men were young. Engels was only 23 at the time and
Marx was 25. Because of their youth, a one act play
makes sense for college productions with actors
around the same age. The play also sheds light on the
personality of Engels who is often relegated to ‘side-
kick’ status and not given the respect he deserves as an
important partner and contributor to Marx’s body of
work.
American audiences in general are not familiar
with the story of Marx and Engels. Howard Zinn
wrote a play in 1999 titled Marx in Soho in which
Marx engages in a monologue spoken to a contempo-
rary audience about ongoing oppression and capitalist
exploitation. He also talks about his family, acquain-
tances, and his life as a revolutionary. Ten Days in
Paris is a play written for college audiences that will
introduce them to the revolutionary ideas of the young
Marx and Engels. The play also gives insights into
early radical thought that eventually culminated in so-
cial change in Europe during the 19th century and the
Russian revolution in 1917.
Dianne Dentice, an assistant professor at Ste-
phen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches,
Texas, graduated from Texas Woman’s University in
Denton, Texas in August 2006. Her dissertation dealt
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with the white separatist movement in the United
States. Currently she is focusing her research on the
Ku Klux Klan. In addition to her research and teach-
ing responsibilities, she plans to write a screenplay
about Marx and Engels and a play about Thorstein
Veblen.
Recent Publications
Clark, B. a. R. Y. (2007). The Restoration of Nature
and Biogeography: An Introduction to Alfred
Wallace's 'Epping Forest'. Organization & En-
vironment, 20(2), 213-234.
Clausen, R. a. B. C. (2005). The Metabolic Rift and
Marine Ecology. Organization and Environ-
ment, 18(4), 422-444.
Longo, S. B. a. N. M. (2006). "Meat, Medicine and
Materialism: A Dialectical Analysis of Human
Relations to Nonhuman Animals and Nature".
Human Ecology Review, 13(2), 111-121.
Longo, S. B. a. R. Y. (2008, Forthcoming). Agriculture
Exports and the Environment: A Cross-
National Analysis of Fertilizer and Pesticide
Consumption. Rural Sociology, 73(1).
Mancus, P. (2007). Nitrogen Fertilizer Dependency
and Its Contradictions: A Theoretical Explora-
tion of Social Ecological Metabolism. Rural
Sociology, 72(2), 269-288.
Skladany, M. C., Rebecca; Bolton, Ben. (2007). Off-
shore Aquaculture: The Frontier of Redefining
Oceanic Property. Society and Natural Re-
sources, 20(2), 169-176.
York, R. a. B. C. (Forthcoming). The Problem with
Prediction: Contingency, Emergence, and the
Reification of Projections. The Sociological
Quarterly.
Join
the Progressive Sociologists
Network (PSN) by following the link:
http://www.colorado.edu/Sociology/
gimenez/psn2
 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1
Section Conference Information
Section on Marxist Sociology, ASA
Panels and Business Meeting Schedule,
August 13-14, Hilton, New York
This year at the ASA Conference in New York, the
Section on Marxist Sociology has panels on both
Monday, August 13 and Tuesday, August 14 (Tuesday
is our section day).
This year we will have a joint reception/party
with the Political Economy of the World-System
Section of the ASA. It will be in the Broadway Room
of Rosie O'Grady's pub at 800 Seventh Ave. across the
street from the Marriot beginning at 8:00 P.M. on
Monday August 13. I hope that many of you will be
able to attend and we can have good cheers together
with our PEWS friends.
We have the following sessions scheduled:
Monday August 13 2:30 P.M. Hilton
417. Section on Marxist Sociology Paper Session. Marx-
ist Theory: Contemporary Challenges.
Session Organizer: Jeffrey A. Halley, University of
Texas, San Antonio
• Foucault, Rodinson and the Iranian Revolution:
Revisiting a Classic Debate Between Post-
Structuralist Philosophy and Marxist Sociology.
Kevin B. Anderson, Purdue University; Janet
Afary, Purdue University
• Reconsidering the Transformation Problem. Paul
B. Paolucci, Eastern Kentucky University
• The Judgment of Taste: A Critique of Bourdieu.
Jeffrey A. Halley, University of Texas, San Anto-
nio
• The Notions of Class and Knowledge Labor in
Informational Capitalism. Christian Fuchs, Uni-
versity of Salzburg
Tuesday August 14 8:30 A.M. Hilton
487. Section on Marxist Sociology Paper Session. Capi-
talism and Environmental Decline
(Co-sponsored with the Section on Political Economy of the
World System and the Section on Environment and Technology).
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Session Organizer: Richard York, University of Ore-
gon. Session Presider: Eugene Rosa, Washington State
University
• Globalization, Foreign Investment Dependence,
and Agriculture Production: A Cross-National
Study of Pesticide and Fertilizer Use Intensity in
Less-Developed Countries, 1990-2000. Andrew
Jorgensen, Washington State University; Kennon
Austin Kuykendall, Washington State University
• Killing the Mattanza: A Political Economic
Analysis of the Sicilian Bluefin Tuna Fishery and
its Environmental Impacts. Stefano B. Longo,
University of Oregon.
• The Slow Co-Production of Disaster: Wildlife,
Timber Capital, and the United States
• Forest Service. Mark Hudson, Ursinus College.
• Solving the Ecological Problems of Capitalism:
Capitalism and Socialist Possibilities.
• Andrew W. Jones, University of Vermont
• Ecological Rent: Toward a Formal Theory of Eco-
logical Degradation in Human Social Evolution.
Kirk S. Lawrence, University of California, Riv-
erside.
Tuesday August 14 10:30 A.M. Hilton
517. Section on Marxist Sociology Paper Session. An-
other World is Necessary: Socialism for the 21st Cen-
tury.
Session Organizer and Presider: Walda Katz-Fishman,
Howard University
• People vs. Profits. Lauren Langman, Loyola Uni-
versity; David Schwiekert, Loyola University.
• From White Supremacy to Color-Blind Racism:
The Limits of Racial Integration in White Nation-
alist America. Robert Newby, Central Michigan
University.
• The Crisis of Global Capitalism and the Prospects
for Socialism in the 21st Century. Berch Berbero-
glu, University of Nevada Reno.
• Socialism for the 21st Century?: Prefigurative
Politics and Subsidiarity at the World Social Fo-
rum. Mark Frezzo, Florida Atlantic University;
Marina Karides, Florida Atlantic University.
• The World Social Forum: Radical Democracy for
the 21st Century. Thomas Ponniah, Harvard Uni-
versity
 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1
• Revolutionary Struggles in the 21st Century and
the U.S. Social Forum. Jerome Scott, Project
South; Walda Katz-Fishman, Howard University;
Ralph Christopher Gomes, Howard University;
Tomas Enrique Encarnacion, U.S. Census Bureau.
 
Tuesday August 14 12:30 Hilton
549. Section on Marxist Sociology. Invited Session. The
Global Crisis of Capitalism: Economic and Ecological.
Session Organizer: John Bellamy Foster, University of
Oregon. Session Presider: Martha E. Gimenez, Uni-
versity of Colorado
• The Global Structural Crisis of Capital. John Bel-
lamy Foster, University of Oregon
• A Transnational Capitalist Class?: At the Borders
of Class and State Theory. William K. Tabb,
United Nations Development Program, Consult-
ant
• From Metabolic Rift to Metabolic Restoration:
Learning from Cubas Organic Socialist Approach
to Food Production. Rebecca J. Clausen, Univer-
sity of Oregon; Brett Clark, Monthly Review
Foundation
• Empire and Outer Space. Peter Dickens, Univer-
sity of Essex; James Ormrod, University of Essex
Tuesday August 14 2:30 Hilton
572. Section on Marxist Sociology Roundtable Session
and Business Meeting.
2:30-3:30 Roundtables
Session Organizer: Jacqueline A. Carrigan, California
State University, Sacremento
Table 1. Critiques of Neoliberalism.
• Finance Capital, Labor and Neo-Liberal Account-
ing Practices. Dan Krier, Iowa State University.
• Neoliberalism or Democracy: Competing Forms
of Social Organization in Latin America. Keffrey
K. Dowd, Rutgers University.
• Musical Chairs: How the Forces of Global Neo-
Liberalism Move People in the Periphery. Mike-
Frank G. Epitropoulos, Tel-Piraeus, Spetses Island
Campus
• Counter Ideology and Evolutionary Change. John
Asamakopoulos, CUNY
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Table 2. Localized Class Struggles.
• From American Values to American Values: How
the Market is Devouring the Neighborhood. John
Brueggemann, Skidmore College
• Marx in South Worcester: Practicing Radical So-
ciology in the Neighborhood. Corey Dolgon,
Worcester State College
• Human Rights, Marxism and Mixed Income Ide-
ology: The Case of New Orleans Public Housing.
John D. Arena, Tulane University
• Cleaning Up the City: Urban Redevelopment and
the Reconceptualization of Vagrancy. Lloyd
Klein, Grambling State University; Stephen R.
Lang, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Table 3. Comparative Perspectives on Class.
• Building Towards Socialism: Participatory De-
mocracy in Venezuela. Stephanie Farmer, Bing-
hamton University
• Class Structure, Income Inequality, and Class
Consciousness in Urban China: Evidences from
the 2003 Panel Data. Thung-hong Lin, Hong
Kong University of Science and Technology.
• Confronting Conflict: Mexican Social Movement
Coalitions, Internal Conflict, and Change. Jose A.
Munoz, New York-Stony Brook
Table 4. Structure and Agency.
• Sociological Vapourware. Alex Dennis, Univer-
sity of Salford; Alison Cavanagh, University of
Leeds
• Structure, Agency, and the Reproduction of a Ra-
cialized Class Structure: Understanding Persistent
Racial Inequality. Rhonda F. Levine. Colgate
University.
• Union School or Revolutionary U?: Exploring the
Links Between Working-Class Consciousness and
Labour Education. Reuben Roth. Laurentian Uni-
versity
• Reproducing/Non-Reproducing Labor Power.
Martha E. Gimenez, University of Colorado
Table 5. Critique of Capitalist Aesthetics
• The Front Lawn as a Work of Art and Nature in
the Age of Chemical Reproduction. Eamonn
Slater, National University of Ireland Maynooth,
Co. Kildare
 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1
• The Ideology of Aesthetic in the Neo-Liberal
Turn. Jyotsna Kapur, Southern Illinois University
Table 6. The State
• Theories of Globalization and Conceptions of the
State. Matthew B. Flynn, University of Texas
• The Intellectual Conflicts of Mikhail Bakunin and
Karl Marx. Sanja Jagesic, Wellesley College
• Militarism and Marxist State Theory. Daniel
Egan, University of Massachusetts-Lowell
• Can There Be a Marxist Theory of Justice: Con-
ceptualizations of Social Justice in Historical Ma-
terialist Framework. Sahan S. Karatasli, Johns
Hopkins University
Table 7. Social Movements and Revolution.
• Is Another World Possible?: Marxism, Phenome-
nology and the Ontological Transformation of the
World. Richard Randell, Webster University
• Theorizing Capital and its Transcendence: The
Marxian Concept of Revolution and its Critique.
Tauna Starbuck Sisco, Purdue University
• Ideology and Anti-Capitalism: A Case Study of
the Anti-G8 Protests, July 2005. Yousaf Ibrahim,
Leeds Trinity and All Saints College, Leeds, Eng-
land
Tuesday August 14 3:30-4:10
Marxist Sociology Business Meeting Hilton
Includes Awards Presentations
Other Conference Sessions of
Interest
Saturday, August 11, 8:30 A.M.
4. Thematic Session. Envisioning Real Utopias
Hilton New York
Session Organizer and Presider: Erik Olin Wright,
University of Wisconsin
• Consumer-Topia: Envisioning a New Culture of
Consuming. Juliet Schor, Boston College
• An Imaginary Map to Noplace. Nancy Folbre,
University of Massachusetts
• Imagining and Enacting Postcapitalist Economies.
Katherine
• Gibson, Australian National University; Julie
Graham, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Taking the 'Social' in Socialism Seriously. Erik
Olin Wright, University of Wisconsin
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To answer the question “Is another world possible?”
we must not only understand the nature of barriers to
social change in the world in which we live and the
forces for social transformation that can potentially
challenge those barriers. We also need some under-
standing of emancipatory alternatives beyond those
barriers: what they would be like, how they would
work, how they could be sustained, what dilemmas
and contradictions they might embody. This session
will explore a variety of perspectives on envisioning
“real utopias” - imagined alternatives that embody
emancipatory aspirations and yet have the potential to
become real social environments for human
flourishing.
5. Thematic Session. Who Rules America? A Forty Year
Retrospective
Sheraton New York
Session Organizer: Rhonda F. Levine, Colgate Univer-
sity Panel:
• Andrew Hacker, City University of New York-
Queens College
• Robert J.S. Ross, Clark University
• Aldon D. Morris, Northwestern University
• Jill Quadagno, Florida State University
The 2007 meetings will mark the 40th anniversary of
the original edition of Who Rules America? This ses-
sion will examine the durability of the original thesis
of Who Rules America ?, the value of the additions
and changes made to the thesis in the ensuing years
leading to the fifth edition, and the usefulness of the
perspective on progressive change and for understand-
ing contemporary politics and envisioning the possi-
bility of another world.
28. Section on History of Sociology Paper Session and
Business Meeting
Sheraton New York
Paper Session on New Directions in the History of So-
ciology (to 9:30 a.m.). Session Organizer and Presider:
Isaac A. Reed, University of Colorado-Boulder
• Anecdotal Evidence in Clifford Shaw's The Jack-
Roller: A Delinquent Boy's Own Story. Stephen
Harold Riggins, Memorial University
• Social States of Mind and Action Regimes in
french Sociology. Bruno ?, University of ?
 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1
• “A Century Apart: W.E.B. Du Bois and Robert
Sampson on Race and Crime”. Paul A. Gilbert,
Brown University
• “With the Practiced Eye of a Deaf Person”: Har-
riet Martineau,
• Deafness and the Scientificity of Social Knowl-
edge. Nadav Gabay, University of California-San
Diego
Business Meeting (9:30-10:10 a.m.)
30. Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Pa-
per Session. Science, Technology, and Environments
Sheraton New York
Session Organizers: Patrick Eamon Carroll, University
of California Davis; Thomas D. Beamish, University
of California-Davis. Presider: Kelly Moore, University
of Cincinnati
• Critical materialism in contemporary environ-
mental sociology: A comparative exploration.
Christopher S. Oliver, Michigan State University
• Envisioning Environment as Ecosystem: Cyber-
netics, Epistemology, and Ontology in Early Sys-
tems Ecology. Lisa Asplen, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign
• From 3D Space to Third Place: Building Sociable
Public Places in Virtual Environments. Robert
John Moore, Palo Alto Research Center; E. Cabell
Hankinson Gathman, University of Wisconsin-
Madison; Nicolas Ducheneaut, Palo Alto Re-
search Center
• Taylorist Talk and Bossy Built Environments. Ra-
chael Elizabeth Barlow, Indiana University
Sociologists interested in science, technology, and en-
vironment discuss “the environment” in a range of
ways: natural, material, built, virtual, as place, and so
on. This session aims to articulate different usages of
“the environment” and related terms, and advance dis-
cussion on what these terms mean, particularly in rela-
tion to questions about materiality.
Saturday, August 11, 10:30 a.m.
Meetings
Orientation for First-time Meeting Attendees — Hilton
New York
Task Force on Institutionalization of Public Sociology
subcommittee — Sheraton New York
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Sessions
35. Presidential Panel. Is Another World Possible in the
Middle East?
Hilton New York
Session Organizer and Presider: Michael Schwartz,
Stony Brook University. Panel:
• Juan Cole, University of Michigan
• Gilbert Achcar, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin
This panel will speak to the theme of the conference
by referencingboth current dynamics and the future
possibilities in the Middle East.
36. Thematic Session. Environmental Constraints on
Development
Hilton New York
Session Organizer: John Bellamy Foster, University of
Oregon
• Third World Development, Global Equality and
Environmental Sustainability. Walden Bello, Uni-
versity of Philippines, Diliman
• The Ecological Footprints of North and South and
Problems of Sustainability and Equality. Richard
F. York, University of Oregon
• Women, Development and Environment. Rebecca
Pearl, Women, Development and Environment
Organization
Discussant: William K. Tabb, City University of New
York
45. Professional Workshop. Your First Academic Job:
Success in the Early Faculty Years
Hilton New York
Session Organizer and Leader: Kate Linnenberg, Be-
loit College. Panel:
• Tomas Roberto Jimenez, University of California,
San Diego
• Jennifer Keys, North Central College
• Nathan D. Wright, Bryn Mawr College
• Greta R. Krippner, University of Michigan
63. Section on Community and Urban Sociology Paper
Session. Cities, Consumption and the Environment (co-
sponsored with the Section on Environment and Tech-
nology)
Sheraton New York
Session Organizers: Kenneth Alan Gould, City Uni-
versity of New York - Brooklyn College; Sharon
 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1

Zukin, City University of New York Graduate Ctr.
Presider: Kenneth Alan Gould, City University of New
York - Brooklyn College
• Bucolic Towns and Blocks of Cement: Environ-
mental Protest in Fuheis, Jordan. Lizabeth A.
Zack, University of South Carolina Upstate
• Conflicted Sustainability and Crushing Land-
scapes: The Neoliberal Quagmire of Urban Envi-
ronmental Planning in Buenos Aires. Ryan Cent-
ner, University of California, Berkeley; Federico
Lastra, Universidad de Buenos Aires
• Environmental Justice, Citizenship, and Brown-
fields Gentrification. Cheryl Teelucksingh, Ryer-
son University
• Household Water Consumption in an Arid City:
Affluence, 'Affordance,' and Attitudes. Sharon L.
Harlan, Arizona State University; Scott Thomas
Yabiku, Arizona State University; Larissa Larsen,
University of Michigan; Anthony Brazel, Arizona
State University
Discussant: Kristen Vanhooreweghe, Brooklyn Col-
lege and City University Graduate Center

INVITATION TO A SPECIAL EVENT AT OUR 102nd ANNUAL

MEETING
“New York City Activists Meet Sociologists”
Sat, Aug 11, 6-8pm
Hilton New York, Concourse G Room, Concourse Level. (Food and drink will be provided).

This reception is an opportunity for informal—we hope, even fun!—interaction between sociologists and local
New York City activists.
At this special Presidential event come to find activist partners for research and meet with other sociologists do-
ing action or applied research. Graduate students are especially encouraged to come and network to find re-
search and internship possibilities.
Please come meet and mingle with NYC activists involved in labor, electoral reform, environmentalism, welfare
reform, community action, immigrant rights and immigration reform, transnational organizing, governmental
watchdog action, justice, youth, school reform, homelessness, housing, anti-war efforts, and more.
Our hope is that this will be a mutually beneficial opportunity for activists and scholars—and the many of us
who fall somewhere in-between—to meet, talk about the ways we work together and figure out new and better
ways to keep our scholarship related to the work of activists.
At the reception, alongside food and drink, we’ll hear some (very) brief presentations allowing plenty of time
for you to introduce yourself and mingle with like-minded others.
Please spread the word about this event. If you have any question, please contact Penny Lewis at
pennywlewis@gmail.com or Lorna Mason at lornalmason@gmail.com.

I look forward to seeing you in August.

In solidarity,

Frances Fox Piven

President, American Sociological Association

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 FROM THE LEFT SUMMER 2007, VOLUME 28, NO. 1
In the News
Excerpted from Business Week:
Americans now spend $41 billion a year on their
pets—more than the gross domestic product of all but
64 countries in the world. That's double the amount
shelled out on pets a decade ago, with annual spending
expected to hit $52
billion in the next
two years, according
to Packaged Facts, a
consumer research
company based in
Rockville, Md. That
puts the yearly cost
of buying, feeding,
and caring for pets
in excess of what
Americans spend on
the movies ($10.8
billion), playing
video games ($11.6
billion), and listen-
ing to recorded music ($10.6 billion) combined. "Peo-
ple are no longer satisfied to reward their pet in pet
terms," argues Bob Vetere, president of the American
Pet Products Manufacturers Assn. (APPMA). "They
want to reward their pet in human terms." That means
hotels instead of kennels, braces to fix crooked teeth,
and frilly canine ball gowns. Pet owners are becoming
increasingly demanding consumers who won't put up
with substandard products, unstimulating environ-
ments, or shoddy service for their animals. But the es-
calating volume and cost of services, especially in the
realm of animal medicine, raises ethical issues about
how far all this loving should go...
Once acquired as sidekicks for kids, animal
companions are more popular now with empty-nesters,
single professionals, and couples who delay having
children. What unites these disparate demographic
groups is a tendency to have time and resources to
spare. With more people working from home or living
away from their families, pets also play a bigger role
in allaying the isolation of modern life. About 63% of
U.S. households, or 71 million homes, now own at
least one pet, up from 64 million just five years ago.
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And science is starting to validate all those warm
feelings with research that documents the depth of the
human-animal bond.
It doesn't take a scientist to figure out that
there's money to be made in this environment. Com-
panies from Procter & Gamble (PG ) and Nestlé
(NSRGY ) to fashion brands including Polo Ralph
Lauren (RL ) and thousands of small entrepreneurs are
sniffing around for new opportunities in the pet sector.
After consumer electronics, pet care is the fastest-
growing category in retail, expanding about 6% a year.
More new pet products were launched in the first six
months of last year than in all of 2005. And that
doesn't account for the ways existing products are be-
ing recast to woo pet lovers. Del Monte has refocused
staples to look more like human snacks—from Snau-
sages breakfast treats shaped like bacon and eggs to
Pup-Peroni rib snacks so appetizing that Wolford had
to stop a TV anchor from popping one into his mouth
on air. Even Meow Mix now comes in plastic cups
rather than cans.
In History
This is the 40th year since the assassination of Marxist
Revolutionary, Che Guevara. His legacy is celebrated
today.
This month in history...Columbus set sail from Spain,
Nixon resigned, the U.S. invaded Iraq (1990), Reagan
ordered the firing of the air-traffic controllers, Frank
Little was killed, and James Baldwin was born.